If you're reading this post, we know your passion is coding. You thrive when given the opportunity to tackle a challenge, and enjoy the rush of applying your knowledge and creativity to approach a problem. Once solved, there's nothing like the satisfaction that comes from knowing you've accomplished something great.

That's why we are excited to announce Google Code Jam 2010 to the true die-hard coding fans. Google Code Jam, powered by Google App Engine, is our annual programming competition, where thousands of coders around the world attack algorithmic problems in several 2.5-hour online rounds. If you make it through the first four rounds, you'll be flown to our on-site finals, to be held for the first time at the Google office in Dublin! Once there, you will compete with 24 other top coders for the $5,000 first prize -- and the coveted title of Code Jam champion.

We don't want you to miss out on any of the action, so we are announcing some important dates for Google Code Jam 2010. Mark your calendars:

In the meantime, visit the Google Code Jam site and try out some of the practice problems so that you'll be ready to go once we kick off the qualification round. Hope to see you in Dublin on July 30th!

Today, we announced the next generation of our ad serving technology for online publishers, the new DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) from Google. We are pleased to announce that the new version of DFP comes with a modern API that enables publishers and third-parties to customize and extend the product.

The new API is available to publishers who use DFP, as well as to third-parties and vendors who would like to build applications on top of DFP. A growing community of developers are already working on sales, order management, workflow and data visualization tools. We've incorporated feedback on the existing DART for Publishers API and believe the new API is a significant step forward. It uses SOAP, a standard and widely-adopted messaging technology that uses HTTP requests to transmit and receive XML data between your client and our servers. This means you can use it with virtually any programming language of your choice. We have a wealth of public documentation available online and there are numerous code samples and client libraries ready for you to download.

To learn more about the new API, there are a few places to get started:

The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) team had an exciting 2009 -- ending the year with a Campfire One where the team announced the release of GWT 2.0 with Speed Tracer. Developers are quickly adopting GWT to build compelling apps in the browser, and we're excited that we'll have the following companies demoing their applications and talking about how they leveraged GWT (and other Google technologies) in the Developer Sandbox at I/O:

How can you take advantage of new HTML5 features in your GWT applications? In this session, we answer that question in the form of demos -- lots and lots of demos. We'll cover examples of how to use Canvas for advanced graphics, CSS3 features, Web Workers, and more within your GWT applications.

Modern web applications are quickly evolving to an architecture that has to account for the performance characteristics of the client, the server, and the global network connecting them. Should you render HTML on the server or build DOM structures with JS in the browser, or both? Bruce Johnson -- one of the founders of Google Web Toolkit -- will discuss this, as well as several other key architectural considerations to keep in mind when building your Next Big Thing.

At its core GWT has a well-defined and customizable mechanism -- called Linkers -- that controls exactly how GWT's compiled JavaScript should be packaged, served, and run. Matt Mastracci of DotSpots will discuss how to create linkers and explains some of the linkers we've created, including a linker that turns a GWT module into an HTML5 Web Worker and one that generates an HTML App Cache manifest automatically.

For large GWT applications, there's a lot you should think about early in the design of your project. GWT has a variety of technologies to help you, but putting it all together can be daunting. This session walks you through how teams at Google architect production-grade apps, from design to deployment, using GWT.

If you're a GWT developer or considering using GWT for your next project, we hope to see you at Google I/O! It'll be a great place to meet and chat with other engineers, including the team behind Google Web Toolkit.

A good chart can take an elusive concept and clarify it in a visually appealing manner. This ingenious XKCD strip uses a pie chart, a bar chart and a recursive scatter plot, to demonstrate the concept of self description.

Whether you need a simple line chart, an interactive Geo Map or a complex Motion Chart , Google can help you add live charts to your web page using our Chart and Visualization APIs. Both of these APIs are free and simple to use, however they each have distinct advantages:1. The Chart API provides Image Charts which are rendered by a Google chart server in response to a simple URL request. Image Charts are fast to render and can be easily emailed and printed. In addition to the extensive gallery of charts, this server now also provides dynamic icons, QR codes, and math formulas.

2. The Visualization API provides Interactive charts which are rendered on the browser using a Google developed JavaScript library. Interactive charts trigger events, providing tool-tips and animations. In addition to a rich gallery of charts, this tool can also read live data from a variety of data sources such as Oracle PL/SQL or Google spreadsheets.

We have discovered that developers occasionally need some help in navigating between the many options and distinct advantages of Image Charts and Interactive Charts, and therefore decided to bring the two APIs under one new framework which we call the "Google Chart Tools". We've accordingly renamed the APIs to Image Charts API and Interactive Charts API and created a simple side-by-side comparison page which you might find useful in choosing which chart tool is better for you.

We recently launched the Google Apps Developer Blog for developers interested in building applications that leverage Google Apps. This blog will cover topics of interest to Google Apps developers building applications on top of Google Apps, integrating with them or utilizing the APIs.

Don Dodge will be the editor and a frequent contributor to this new blog. Don is a Developer Advocate at Google helping developers build new applications on Google platforms and technologies. Don has been a startup evangelist at Microsoft and is also a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks.

You can follow the team's updates on Twitter, too – follow @googleappsdev – and, while you're at it, stay tuned to updates from the Google enterprise team at @googleatwork.

Following on the heels of today's announcement on Buzz, we're excited to bring you the latest on all things social at Google I/O, starting with a session on Buzz APIs and a new panel session!

What's the hubbub about Google Buzz APIs?Google Buzz is a new way to share updates, photos, videos and more, and start conversations about the things you find interesting. In this session, we'll take a deep dive into building with the Buzz APIs and the open standards it uses, such as ActivityStrea.ms, PubSubHubbub, OAuth, Salmon and WebFinger.

Where is the social web going next?With the advent of social protocols like OAuth, OpenID and ActivityStrea.ms, it's clear that the web has gone social and is becoming more open. Adam Nash (LinkedIn), Daniel Raffel (Yahoo), John Panzer (Google), Lili Cheng (Microsoft), Monica Keller (MySpace), and Ryan Sarver (Twitter) will discuss the importance of such emerging technologies, how they've adopted them in their products and debate what's next.

Here are additional sessions that'll give you a deep dive into the emerging technologies and standards that will help you create a more engaging user experience for your web applications and sites, and enable a people-centric web.

You'll also have the opportunity to meet developers from the following companies in the Social Web pod of the Developer Sandbox: Atlassian, eBay, IBM, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Playfish, Yahoo!, and Voxeo. They'll be demoing their social apps, talking in-depth about integrating with various Google technologies, answering questions, and chatting with attendees.

This morning we announced Google Buzz, a new way to share updates, photos, videos and more, and start conversations about the things you find interesting.

We'd like to take this opportunity to invite developers to join us as we prepare the Google Buzz API for public launch. Our goal is to help create a more social web for everyone, so our plan for the Buzz API is a bit unconventional: we'd like to finalize this work out in the open, and we ask for your participation. By building the Google Buzz API exclusively around freely available and open protocols rather than by inventing new proprietary technologies, we believe that we can work together to build a foundation for generations of sites to come. We're ready to open the doors and share what we've been working on, and we'd like for you to join us in reaching this goal.

Earlier this week, we announced the introduction of I/O BootCamp, a new event happening the day before Google I/O. We didn't anticipate the level of interest we've seen in just the last few days, and we're both excited and sorry to let you know that I/O BootCamp is now sold out.

However, we are accepting waitlist sign-ups. So if you'd like to attend I/O BootCamp, submit your info on the BootCamp website, and we'll email you if a spot opens up.

Please remember that I/O BootCamp is only available to those who've already registered for Google I/O. If you'd like learn more about and register for Google I/O, visit code.google.com/io.

Each week in our "Who's @ Google I/O" blog series, we'll highlight the latest from a featured track at I/O. This week, the spotlight is on Enterprise -- a major theme of this year's event.

In 2009, we saw an increasing number of large companies moving to the cloud (and "Going Google"), choosing the web as their platform of choice. At I/O, we'll share our enterprise and commercial developer offerings and focus on how to build business apps in the cloud.

We'll be adding new Enterprise sessions over the next couple of months, but here's a preview of some of the sessions you'll see at I/O:

Customizing Google Apps & integrating with customer environmentsHear real-life examples of customizing Google Apps to meet customer requirements from several panelists, including two of our Sandbox participants -- Iein Valdez of Appirio and Michael Cohn of CloudSherpas. Explore integration issues and deployment best practices with the people who have done it.

It’s 2010: How is your move to the cloud doing?Come discover the latest innovations from Google enabling IT and ISV developers to build on Google's cloud-based storage and computing offerings. This talk will give a complete overview of Google's commercial developer products and provide insights and best practices so enterprise developers can take more advantage of the cloud.

Launch your app inside of Google Apps with gadgetsGadgets represent a valuable opportunity to get in front of the many Google Apps users who use Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Sites throughout the day. This session will talk about how you can write gadgets as natural extensions of your existing products and take advantage of the unique opportunities available to gadgets in Google Apps.

This year, we're introducing I/O BootCamp, a new event happening the day before Google I/O. BootCamp is an opportunity for attendees to get a crash course in our major development platforms and tools before they head into Google I/O. BootCamp will feature introductory "101" content, hands-on lab sessions, and community-led discussions.

BootCamp is only available to those who are registered to attend Google I/O. Since space is limited, we ask that interested Google I/O attendees please register at our BootCamp site.